Title: The impact of business method plagiarism on customer trust: a cultural comparison

Authors: Hsiaoping Yeh

Addresses: Department of Marketing and Distribution Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Abstract: Owing to the furious pace and volume of new business methods in the competitive e-marketplace, plagiarism, for time saving, seems to be an easy and quick alternative to success. Business methods could be developed for e-commerce applications simultaneously. The developers might not know another's work and may think that the idea is common and obvious. While the plagiarism is treated as a cheat and causes the loss of public trust towards the plagiarist, this study has verified that this phenomenon is also applicable to e-businesses and provides evidence that plagiarism would harm customers' trust in the plagiarising e-retailers. The reaction of customers in the USA is more noteworthy than that of the Taiwanese customers. Taiwanese customers tend to forgive the plagiarism when they perceive a higher reputation and quality experiences gained from the plagiarists; yet, American customers will not change much of their attitude under these conditions.

Keywords: plagiarism; customer trust; customer experience; benefit; reputation.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2022.120700

European Journal of International Management, 2022 Vol.17 No.2/3, pp.349 - 370

Received: 14 Jan 2019
Accepted: 09 Nov 2019
Published online: 04 Feb 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article